My targa top has seen better days. It doesn’t look bad, but the wind noise it generates at speed is atrocious… Above 120Km/h it’s almost deafening, becoming a very effective speed limiter.

Reliable specialists in targa top restorations are few and far away, so I’ve been thinking about different options. So far, I identified the following ones:

Send it to a good shop for refurbishing. Best recommended is CarsInc in New Jersey. But I live in Europe, so on top of the 800USD they will probably charge, I would have to add a prohibitive cost in shipping the top to the US and back. Forget it…

Next option would be buying the materials (vinyl, burlap, padding, glue) either from CarsInc or Pelican and do the job myself. This would be a much cheaper alternative – 300USD tops – but doing it properly it’s not for the faint hearted, and you want to do it properly, otherwise you stay put. So, it’s a possibility but I’m sceptical.

Thinking out of the box (or out of the top), I could go for a rigid conversion. Folding the top creates creases, so in the long run you have another replacement coming. As the unfolded top still fits in the front trunk, it’s not really a problem. The idea is to use the existing folding frame, where a new rigid top would be bolted. First choice was Lexan (polycarbonate), already used by some (see here), but I also gave some thought to riveted aluminium (could be body coloured), stainless steel (it would match the targa bar, but isn’t easy to shape) and finally, PETG… What is PETG ? The full name is Polyethylene Terephtalate Glycol-modified and it is cheaper, lighter and easier to mold than Lexan, although with less resistance to impacts. As we’re not talking about a windsheld here, I don’t see it as a problem.

Applying the vinyl myself scares me a bit. You only get one change of doing it right before the glue sets in. So, a PETG rigid top will probably be. It’s easier to shape than Lexan, but still offering good rigidity. If all goes well I’ll have a top whose shape doesn’t deform or age significantly. For the finish, I’ll probably apply some coarse-grained vinyl similar to the original, as not to “disrupt” the original look.